The Long Road
by crazytomboy78
Summary: Some things are better found out the hard way. One-shot.


**Okay, last one-shot before working on V-Day and Her Story. I promise. And this one won't be as sad as the other one! ANDDD it's my first Rhodey/Whitney story (or, my first story about a couple that's not Pepperony. Lol.) Yaaay (: **

As Rhodey stepped out of his car after a long, exhausting drive from his college in West Virginia, and he was tired of sitting for 6 and a half hours. He stretched his arms before unloading his things into his new house in the city. He'd bought it over his spring break, and it had a perfect view of the pier and the ocean. The interior was beautiful, and the location was perfect. It wasn't in the middle of the city, but it was close. It was located in the outskirts.

"Hey, dude, congrats to the college grad!" He heard a male voice from behind him. He looked back to see none other than Tony.

"Thanks, man! Let me just say, I am glad to be home." Rhodey walked into the house with a suitcase and a few boxes.

"Well you got a nice place now. All I have is the house me and my dad lived in before the accident." Tony said.

"Dude, are you kidding me? That place is one floor shy of being a mansion. It's like, twice as big as my place." Rhodey laughed.

"Whatever. I'm just trying to compliment your house." Tony said nicely.

"Well thank you." Tony checked the time on his watch.

"Oh, that's right. Hey, I'd love to stay and chat but I have a meeting in fifteen minutes and I have to head back. See you later, dude." Tony patted his friend on the back and walked back to his own car.

"Thanks for stopping by!" Rhodey called after him. He continued moving his belongings inside his new house as Whitney approached with a smile. She'd given up on attracting Tony their senior year when Tony had shown up to school holding hands with Pepper; through the course of Pepper's college years, Tony had proposed and they were getting married this summer.

Rhodey, however, had post-college plans of his own. Since he'd spent the past four years in military school, training to become a Colonial for the air force portion of the army, he was starting in the army in a few months. As for his relationship with Whitney, he had plans for that as well. He'd been with her long enough to know where they belonged in the world, and had high hopes for her reaction.

"Hey, Rhodey, welcome home!" She exclaimed as she pecked him on his lips and grabbed a box from Rhodey's stack.

"Hey Whitney! Glad to be home." Rhodey greeted.

"Well, what do you say we celebrate your homecoming with a double date tonight?" Whitney proposed. Rhodey smiled.

"Sounds great. I'll get Tony into it after I'm done moving this stuff in." Rhodey put down more boxes and walked out to grab more.

"How much stuff did you bring? Your whole dormitory?" Whitney asked, viewing Rhodey's trunk-full and backseat-full of boxes.

"What? I need a lot of stuff for the new place. It's my first house." Rhodey explained.

"Or maybe you went a little overboard on the shopping?" Whitney teased.

"Ha ha." Rhodey grabbed another stack of boxes and moved towards the house, Whitney following empty-handed; it's not something that annoyed Rhodey, he was used to Whitney's lack of ability to perform manual labor. It was just the way she'd been raised. He couldn't blame her for anything.

After they'd finished moving in boxes, Whitey had decided to go home for a bit before getting ready to get to dinner, so Rhodey went to pay a visit to Tony. (Tony was usually 'off work' by this hour, but all that means for Tony is sitting in his office doing extra work.)

"Hello, Rhodey, what brings you around?" Asked Pepper as she noticed Rhodey walking into Stark International.

"Whitney wants all of us to go out to dinner tonight to celebrate me coming home. I'm going up to see Tony about it." Rhodey explained as he approached the elevator.

"That sounds so fun! That's thoughtful of her." Pepper said in a quirky and positive tone.

"It's still so weird to hear you being nice about her." Rhodey laughed.

"Well, I don't have a reason to hate her anymore, really. Tony's my fiancée, after all, not hers." Pepper explained.

"Hopefully she'll be _a _fiancée soon." The elevator doors slid shut.

They reached the floor with Tony's office and found Tony looking at schematics for an idea he had for a new invention.

"Hey there, workaholic." Pepper greeted the boy.

"Oh. Hey guys." He looked away from the hologram-screen schematics he'd been staring at for a half an hour now.

"Hey, Whitney wants us all to go out for dinner to celebrate my coming home." Rhodey explained.

"Sure, sounds great." Tony looked back to his schematics.

"Yep. Now all you have to do is stop working," Rhodey said.

"Yeah, as soon as I'm done analyzing these schematics I'll get right on that."

"Yeah, the idea of 'stop working' usually applies immediately." Rhodey teased.

"Maybe for people who aren't me." Tony smiled.

"Well, just be on time dude. I have to go." Rhodey exited.

Once he got home, he unpacked some of his clothes and hung them up so he could find his nice clothes. As he got ready, sticking his hand in his pocket, he fingered the item sitting in his palm nervously.

After he showered, dressed and gussied up further, he stood in his living room and his phone rang. He pulled it from his pocket and answered to his girlfriend. She nagged at him for a few minutes before he hung up with a fair conclusion; he'd pick her up soon. He felt the smooth velvet box in his pocket and glanced at it, heavily nervous.

"Hey, dude. We ready?" Tony asked as he came in.

"Yeah, I'm just nervous." Rhodey explained.

"About a date? It's nothing." Tony said, confused.

"No, about this." Rhodey pulled a small velvet box from his pocket.

"Dude, you're…?" Tony asked; Rhodey nodded, "that's awesome!"

"Yeah, but, how did you do it? It's so nerve-wracking." Rhodey paced slightly.

"You just kind of get sucked into the moment. It just happens." Tony glanced at his phone for the time.

"Gee, that sounds _so _easy."

"But really, we should get going. Pepper's waiting in the car." They left for Whitney's and the restaurant.

After dinner, Rhodey offering to pay, and Tony taking the car that they drove to the restaurant in together, Rhodey and Whitney started a decent walk home.

"Thanks again for dinner; you didn't have to pay for everyone." Whitney said as she removed her heels to continue walking. Rhodey still felt nervous.

"It's no problem. I had a few bucks spare from my job in college." Rhodey explained.

"It was still pretty nice of you." She smiled. Rhodey thought of how far they'd come. It'd started as unrecognized drooling, turned into an unreachable dream, and then slowly turned into what it was today. It felt like a day, but he knew it'd been a good year and a half. A year and a half that he was willing with his heart to turn into the infinite number of years that each man, at some point in his life, made the decision to do. Even his workaholic-prone best friend had found his eternity with someone; that had to mean something for him.

"Hey, I've been meaning to ask something." Rhodey said as they stopped at Whitney's apartment (if her father hadn't cut her off it would've been a penthouse). Whitney turned to face him with a smile. The nervous boy pulled the box from his pocket, hiding it in his fist.

"I-I thought, you'd like to have this." He held it out to her. Whitney shot him a look of confusion as she opened the box to reveal a small, diamond ring. She was silent, but didn't appeal to be elated.

"O-oh…" She said quietly. She didn't want to upset him, but she felt she had no choice. She closed the box and placed a hand on Rhodey's shoulder. Rhodey looked confused and was starting to look hurt.

"Look, James, I'm flattered, really; but I'm just not that kind of girl." Whitney dropped her hand to her side. Rhodey looked more hurt than confused.

"What…what do you mean?" He asked, trying to stop his voice from quivering.

"Rhodey, I'm not the type of girl that's willing to be tied down like that. I mean, did you honestly believe that I would spend the rest of my life with just one guy? I wasn't raised to be that way by a man who couldn't even stay in a marriage with a woman for more than a year before getting bored with her," Whitney explained. Rhodey looked to the floor.

"It's not you, it's just me. I mean, if your dad had four wives, you'd understand. But, I just…I have to say goodbye now." She stood in silence a moment then walked inside. Rhodey, velvet ring box in hand, stood in place for a moment then walked home, hanging his head in depression.

Once he walked in his door, he noticed Tony standing in his living room.

"How'd it go?" he asked. Rhodey shook his head. Tony walked up to him and placed a supportive hand on his friend's shoulder.

"I'm sorry dude," Tony comforted.

"Why didn't you warn me?" Rhodey asked.

"I wanted you to find out for yourself. You wouldn't have listened to me if I'd told you earlier." Tony explained. He'd wanted his friend to avoid heartbreak, but he wanted him to discover the truth on his own. It was only in the best interest of Tony for Rhodey.

"I just don't understand. We were so good together, then I spring it on her and she turns a new leaf." Rhodey took a seat on his couch, Tony doing the same.

"Dude, you'll find someone else sometime. Hey, if I can find someone, then there's got to be hope for you." That spread a decent smile across Rhodey's face.

"Yeah, well, the road to recovery is long."

**Okay, I swear that was the last one this time. I have no more one-shot ideas. Just chapter-story ideas. So there! review! **


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